Pseudo-Nero, The Jewish Star Prophecy, Roman Provenance

[yakovzutolmai]

I have seen a lot of Roman Provenance material lately, and while there's nothing new, this particular subject came to mind and left me unsatisfied.

I've mentioned it in much wider speculation before, but my dissatisfaction leaves me wanting to emphasize this one question alone.

We know, largely through Josephus, of a Jewish prophecy of a star, of a king coming out of Judea who will rule the world. There's plenty of scholarship on this as a reflection of basic Jewish messianism, and yet I find it falls flat. We apparently can point to "bar Kokhba" and his rebellion as evidence that the meaningfulness of the "star prophecy" within Jewish messianism was widespread even into the second century.

I can only think of two explanations for this prophecy, in the Jewish milieu, which have ever been offered. First, that the first century was full of "turmoil and messianic fervor" and that - Life of Brian style - messiahs were just popping up left and right because of the heavy burden of Roman rule. Second, that the star prophecy is later writers being inspired by the literal historical truth of Matthew's nativity narrative, but by then misunderstanding the original, Christian meaning of it.

I reject the second explanation out of hand.

The first explanation is fine, but I've been uncomfortable with this "messiahs popping up everywhere" narrative. I feel that even this narrative is poisoned by the bias of Acts. This offhand comment in relation to Stephen about Theudas and Judas the Galilean. I think to satisfaction scholarship has demonstrated that Acts gets all of its knowledge about "messiahs popping up everywhere" from Josephus alone. Speaking to an audience that might not actually themselves know more than what Josephus wrote, if that.

I'm not convinced the first half of the first century of Judea was all that remarkable. There was a matter of the ambition of Herod Antipas. There was some controversy about Pilate's blasphemy - and in context this is a time where there is no religiously Jewish King of Judea, the first such time since the Maccabees. The pre-Roman period of Judea is full of turmoil, foreign conquerors, crucifixions and persecutions. Religious controversies, imprisonments, murders. I know we are told to think of Roman rule as particularly bad, and I certainly can see an escalation of crisis up until the 65 AD conflict, but I'm not sure I believe this "turmoil and messiahs everywhere" narrative. I think Christian and Jewish religious ideologies depend on this myth of some particularly bad Roman period, and our sense of it derives from both camps emphasizing it.

If anything, I see the Jewish turmoil as more of an expression of Thucydides' trap, where the Jewish nation and diaspora are rising and therefore trying to sort out their place in the world by way testing the boundaries of their power (with plenty of factions among a disperse and fractured ethnos vying for power within).

I think when Josephus talks about Judas or Theudas, it's not because it's offhand history, exemplars of a larger phenomenon. It's because these are specific, meaningful events that impact history. And I do think Josephus is apologetic, and therefore can be vague where there's some room for embarrassment. That is, being vague is not commentary on the importance of an event, necessarily.

I strongly suspect that the "star prophecy" discussed in the context of Vespasian's rule, and pertaining obviously also to Jewish messianism as politically manifest (ex. Bar Kokhba), is the result of a discrete event, a popular movement of some kind at a specific place and time. We don't have to search very far for this. We know the Qumran community was very focused on their pesherim. We see them as exemplars of a speculated wider phenomenon of reading things out of the Tanakh. We also understand early Christians as creating their whole religion out of what might be implied, in their interpretation, by the Old Testament prophets.

We know that the star prophecy is derived from this exact methodology. What we don't know is exactly how widespread this all was, and we do not have anything like a complete accounting of the groups doing it and their relative influence. If it weren't for the DSS, would we even know about the Qumranites?

So I have to speculate that some kind of popular movement or set of movements - which to us now lies forgotten - created this anticipation of a messiah, this star prophecy. That it wasn't built into Judaism, but had to be emphasized through some kind of discrete popular movement.

FALSE NERO

It doesn't take a lot of brain power to recognize the parallels between the false Nero phenomenon and the star prophecy. This connection would not, at first, seem appropriate at all. However, in Josephus we do see Vespasian mentioned in connection with the star prophecy. This gives a totally new meaning to the star prophecy.

Not only is the star prophecy more than generic Jewish messianic expectation, not only is it a popularized expectation resulting from a discrete religious mania localized to a time and place and group, but apparently the cultural impact of the star prophecy was great enough for there to be some actual meaning in applying it to Vespasian. There's even more to it than that.

It would be one thing if Josephus merely applies it to Vespasian, as some sort of courtesy or peculiar honor which might mean something to the Jews. The fact that Josephus feels the need to mention it implies that it might mean something to Josephus's Roman audience. This is a key to interpreting Josephus, in my opinion. As history approaches the Roman period, and within it, Josephus has to consider his audience's own knowledge of key figures and events. For example, we know that Romans seem to know of Theudas. It would appear the character has some infamy outside of Josephus's own account. So naturally Josephus has to answer for this character, give him a story to satisfy the audience (otherwise, it would be too embarrassing to even mention). The fact that his story is rather vague is the evidence that there's more to the story.

I'm left asking, what did the star prophecy mean to the Roman, Greek or Eastern audiences?

We might leave it at that, and could argue that the prophecy really is a peculiarity of the Jews and he's mentioning it because it's relevant to his own relationship to Vespasian and why he ended up being part of the story.

What disallows us from conceding this is the false Nero phenomenon, where the parallels to the star prophecy are too great. We have, with Vespasian, an example of the star prophecy leaving an entirely Jewish context. It's possible. And so the parallels between the star prophecy and false Nero are much more likely to result from a direct relationship, rather than from coincidence. It is simply more likely that a popularized religious mania of the Jewish diaspora ended up in the general Roman consciousness (in the East), than it is that the false Nero narrative appeared completely coincidentally, independent of Jewish narratives.

ROMAN PROVENANCE

If the pseudo-Nero narrative comes from the star prophecy, we are already conceding a discrete, popular movement that is evangelizing the star prophecy (which cannot be the "Christians" because per Matthew the star itself is long come and gone). We can now consider a discrete, popular movement evangelizing pseudo-Nero, or at least an audience which was first evangelized by star prophecy advocates, who then somehow applied it to Nero.

We do know that the adherents of pseudo-Nero are very specifically poor Greeks. This is the audience that adored Nero, in spite of the feelings of the rest of the Empire. That makes sense. Having located them, we can now consider that this group in their own time and place, must have been exposed to star prophecy evangelizing. Enough to have a consciousness of it, such that they could invent pseudo-Nero.

They had been hoping for Nero to return from the East, and yet it was Vespasian who literally did. And somehow this is all originating from Jewish messianic pesher. The story is actually unbelievable if it wasn't true. It bothers me. I'm not satisfied with the fact this hasn't been more aggressively studied in terms of linking the pieces together.

From what little I know, we DO have more links in the form of Paul's epistles. There's a lot to say about Paul. I've been following along with some phenomenal scholarly reviews of Paul that hint at the possibility that he comes much later than thought (of course, let's just throw Acts in the garbage as history).

I make no comment about the historicity of the epistles. I do observe that the narrative voice of the epistles does seem to anchor in a time and place. We can suggest this is a fictional narrator, but what we can't escape is the fact that the author would like his audience to locate Paul in this time and place.

The time is debatable, maybe flexible. The places are clear. The early epistles all locate right in the epicenter of pseudo-Nero's adherents. Right in the heart of Hellas.

One final note. Vespasian connects both to Nero and to the star prophecy. He was exiled in the East during this time period. I believe there's some evidence it was Hellas where he took exile, and even that Nero may have visited in person at the dawn of the Jewish revolt (implying that perhaps some Herodian-Alexandrian Jews were evangelizing on behalf of Vespasian to coincide with his appointment to go East to fight, but the locals confused the message and applied it to Nero, who shortly thereafter was conveniently martyred in their eyes; that Vespasian-as-messiah was proselytized, but the narrative was transposed onto Nero, explaining false Nero).

In conclusion, it would seem to me that you have a locus - Hellas, 65 AD, proximity to either Vespasian or Nero, involvement of messianic Jews using pesherim. I would speculate that Paul's texts come later, but in reaction to that locus, speaking to an audience that is conscious of it.

There are many Roman provenance hypotheses, and some of them seem weak to me. I don't quite see Christianity itself as a deliberate, conscious Roman construction. At best, maybe there's a proto-Mark which was literally written in the Roman court, but not to be part of some evangelical religious movement (for example, Mark is a dramatic piece for Berenice's birthday hypothesis). Another compromise position is that there were proto-Paulines, earlier versions of the authentic epistles which represented a Roman preference on how speculative disapora messianism should be practiced.

With Luke-Acts, there's not much to see. It's obviously late, and constructed out of texts we already know about. It's not very interesting. Mark and Paul are more interesting. Where did they come from?

I have felt that most of Judaism was "Christian" until the third century. Really, two or more Jewish Christian factions vying for power against each other, and then recast within Mark as "the Jews" against "Christians". Even the Pharisaical groups most uncomfortable with pesher, by the time of Bar Kokhba, seem to have embraced the basic premise of Jewish Christianity (again, we assume no historical Jesus, so Ebionite "Jewish Christians" are not Jews who were influenced by Peter and Mary sans Paul, but rather this was just the state of the Jewish religion).

Later, Roman Christianity helped provide a contrast to guide the redactions of the Tannaim. And Roman, "catholic" Christianity is not very hard to explain. It's the embrace of New Testament texts over verbal tradition and mystery teachings. Using the interpretative lens of Hellenic philosophy, rather than seeing Christianity as an expression of Jewish theology. It may be a reaction to Marcionism, but I can't help but see catholic church fathers as adopting Marcion's core conceit that Christianity is an independent religion, with its own texts and traditions, outside of rabbinical authority.

This process of a clear and final divorce between Judaism and Christianity occurred late enough, and its dynamic is clear enough that I would say that we do not need to reach very far to explain it. We understand it. There are little mysteries such as asking who Marcion really was, but it's not ultimately very important in terms of telling us something we didn't suspect.

So, I don't see "Roman provenance" as terribly critical in explaining the religious outcome which is Roman Christianity. Unless Marcion has some important link to Roman provenance, we don't need Roman provenance to explain Roman Christianity.

Where the lynchpin lies is with Paul and Mark. Some of Paul's ideas are seen in Judaism, although they fail to survive within Judaism by later centuries. There are also controversies about theology that deal with arguments about the dating of certain texts and which came first (Ascension of Isaiah, for example). Still, altogether, Paul is not terribly hard to explain. If Roman provenance is real, then at most all you're adding to Paul is something to the effect of follow the civil law and government authorities and try to play nice with gentiles.

Mark, however, is hard to explain. All of Christian historicity rests on Mark. Mark takes elements of history that are not consistent with the Christian historical narrative, but which have similar and relatable elements, and organizes them in a way that creates the Christian narrative. Everything has to be adjusted to fit into Mark, and everything else that's added is added onto Mark. So naturally we see the Christian narrative begin with Mark.

The very concept of historicity - of a real, breathing Jesus of Nazareth who ordained and commissioned apostles - is essential to the project of Roman Christianity. It's "Marcionite" conceit of Christian independence from Jewish religious authorities, and its notion of apostolic orthodoxy, come from a belief that an inspired son of Nazareth sat down on the shores of Galilee to have chats with twelve poor peasants. You can disbelieve in the Christian faith, but still believe that the faith's substance and independence derive from this discrete historical event (which, sadly, many scholars still do).

I have to blame/credit Mark with creating the narrative which took some combination of miscast history, allegory and mythology/doctrine and presented it as a coherent sequence of events.

So if these star prophecy, false Nero evangelizers are connected to Vespasian's family in some way, and they are responsible for Mark, then there is a solid case for a "Roman provenance".

Which is not to say this is what happened. Not that we're putting this forward as a solution to the puzzle.

Merely, we do have a locus of activity surrounding false-Nero, the star prophecy, and critical moments in Roman and Judeo-Christian history. And we have almost nothing to say about it.

That's what leaves me feeling quite uneasy. We can put Christian origins aside for a moment and ask what's really going on here? We will be forced to acknowledge connections to Christian and Jewish elements, but we can nevertheless stay on task.

How can we not see the star prophecy in false-Nero? And how can this not send us in loops, seeking a balm for our disbelief?

ADDENDA

As I said, my hypothesis is that Nero came to Hellas in 65 AD as the Jewish War was provoked. Tiberius Alexander, relative of Philo and Herodians, persecutor of James and Simon in the 40s, presents his legions to Vespasian, and Nero is forced to appoint Vespasian to persecute the war in Judea.

This clear Flavian-Herodian-Alexandrian alliance emerges (which has complicated and interesting implications for Jewish factions, another story, but in my opinion the root cause of much of the chaos of Jewish war - they didn't phone ahead to get everyone on the same page).

So I think you already had the Ananian Jews who were already arguing for no circumcision, gentile conversion, the temple and high priest are in heaven only, there is no need to follow the law. And this set reacts immediately to Vespasian's appointment by Nero in Hellas, and evangelizes gentiles to the messianic expectation and star prophecy to solidify the alliance with the Flavians. However, the poor Greeks mistake the context and assume the prophecy is about Nero, a belief which is emphasized after the disappointment of Nero dying. He becomes a martyr in other words, with a convenient narrative of a second coming.

And so this locus, if not the place where Paul's epistles originate, is the locus around which the narrative of the epistles was written.

My personal theory is that "Paul" is meant to be interpreted as Ananus ben Ananus, representative of the Ananian school. In that Ananus is the historical rival to James, where hagiographically this is Paul. And Ananus's father Ananus, in Josephus, is first to argue against the need for circumcision. Again, within Christianity, attributed to Paul. So, it is not Ananus himself who wrote these epistles, but their audience (which may have a loose and vague memory of recent history) is meant to identify the authority of the voice of the epistles with Ananus. Mind you, this man was one of the last High Priests of Israel. It's hard to beat that level of authority among forlorn Jews a generation after they lost the temple altogether. But the locus for this conversation draws inspiration from this real-life event in Hellas with Vespasian. False Nero being history's thumbprint.

I'll also note that I consider the Herodian-Flavian conspiracy to be one of history's best examples of a conspiracy. One argument against conspiracy theories is that they involve large groups of people being perfectly competent, making them therefore unlikely.

What's remarkable about this conspiracy theory is that there's evidence of constant incompetence and bad luck. The star prophecy was meant for Vespasian, but the locals simply transpose it unhelpfully onto dead Nero. Berenice was meant to marry Titus, perhaps elevating Flavian household Judaism/Christianity to an imperial cult, but Vesuvius explodes before Titus can get a full year under his belt. The Babylonian Jews of Bathyra were meant to be on Agrippa/Rome's side against Ananus, but miscommunication and the arrogance of an individual Roman commander leads to the massacre at Gamala. Ananus was meant to, perhaps, negotiate with Vespasian but a miscalculation of an underling, an act of desperation, leads to the gates of the city being open for manic Idumeans to come in and slaughter everyone.

You can see that the intent was for Vespasian to come to Judea, receive the support of the frontier Jews with King Agrippa. Negotiate with Ananus - who had finally unified the Ananian and Boethusian factions through Martha. It be proclaimed a miracle, invoking prophecy. With united Eastern and Jewish strength, and the support of Jewish-dominated Egypt, march with prophetic impetus on Rome, and then maybe in a generation make Ananian Judaism into a united, monotheistic imperial cult.

The only parts of the plan that worked was Judea being subdued and Vespasian stumbling into the throne.

Finally, one counter argument that discounts false-Nero, star prophecy connection. One basis for connecting the star prophecy to Vespasian is the account of Tacitus which mentions Basilides, the prophecy and Mt. Carmel.

We know that Basilides was present to anoint Vespasian in the Serapeum of Alexandria. Not as the Jewish messiah, but as divinity incarnate. A basic Eastern style god-king. Preemptive to the throne, which only recently had become a seat of divinity in Roman thought. We know that Josephus told Vespasian of the star prophecy, but as noted earlier, this may have been an idiosyncrasy to Josephus's own biographical narrative that was not ultimately very important to Vespasian himself.

Tacitus, then, is confused. Conflating the two events, and consolidating Basilides and Josephus (also ben Zakkai) into a single event, a bare emphasis of Vespasian's divine right to rule.

If true, then the importance of the Jewish star prophecy to Roman politics is negligible and coincidental. On the other hand, there's room to interpret a deliberate connection where Basilides and Josephus are engaging in a coordinated effort meant to establish Vespasian's prophetic destiny both for his own sake, but also in the service of preparing the fields for harvest.

Regardless, the structure of the false-Nero narrative is far too similar to the Jewish star prophecy, and coincidence seems unlikely. Thus, false Nero itself is evidence in favor of more deliberate embrace of the star prophecy on the part of the Flavians.

[GakuseiDon]

It doesn't take a lot of brain power to recognize the parallels between the false Nero phenomenon and the star prophecy.

What is the "false Nero phenomenon"? I've never heard of it, but it sounds interesting. (I'm assuming it isn't the Nero Redivivus legend?)

[yakovzutolmai]

It doesn't take a lot of brain power to recognize the parallels between the false Nero phenomenon and the star prophecy.

What is the "false Nero phenomenon"? I've never heard of it, but it sounds interesting. (I'm assuming it isn't the Nero Redivivus legend?)

It is precisely Nero Redivivus. There were actually three known claimants who amassed followers. These are the "false" Neros. I think it's important to not treat Nero Redivivus as a kind of ancient version of Elvis sightings, which I feel is what happens. Instead, there are elements of the legend (arrival from the East) which parallel the star prophecy's elements. That is, Nero isn't Tupac, he's a resurrected messiah king.

A Christian apologist could say that Nero's followers appropriated Christian teachings about Christ. However, the star prophecy has a relevance to the Flavians and Jews in a way that totally ignores Christ. It may be incorrect to say so, but I think either the gospel narrative was known at this time, or it wasn't. The evidence surrounding the discussion of the Jewish star prophecy doesn't seem to be aware of Christ.

Therefore, Nero Redivivus would probably derive not from Christ, but from the star prophecy.

Which forces us to ask: if there wasn't apostolic evangelization in Hellas preaching the synoptic narrative, then what the heck was being evangelized to put this idea in their heads?

[Leucius Charinus]

Does the OP relate to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Prophecy

The Star Prophecy (or Star and Scepter prophecy) is a Messianic reading applied by Jewish Zealots and early Christians to Numbers 24:17

[MrMacSon]

FWIW, parts of Book 8 of the Sibylline Oracles deal with Nero Redivivus

Starting with Line ~68 there's a section concerning the return of Nero during the reign of “an old man.”

Rome will be judged (73-109, 123-130). They will be brought down from their great height by “gigantic hands” (100) and be made to dwell under the earth, everyone will hear bellowing from Hades and the gnashing of teeth. All will be judged in the great tribunal of God (110-122). This section is inserted into the condemnation of Rome and breaks off after a long list of “equality” statements (there will be no king, no tyrant, etc.) The age will be “common to all.” (Cf. 1 Enoch 53:6-7, the “levelling” of social groups in Matthew 3). In lines 131-138 Hadrian is praised as ruling “by the counsels of the great God without contamination.”

The text breaks off with “When the time of the phoenix comes” (139-159), but it is enough for Collins to once again identify this as a text about the return of Nero. By the reign of Marcus Aurelius, Nero would have been long dead, so the image of the Phoenix is appropriate to describe the rebirth of this enemy of God’s people. He will return to ravage the race of peoples, the nation of the Hebrews.

This section is an allusion to the persistent rumor Nero faked his death in A.D. 68 and would eventually return to his rightful place as emperor of Rome. Some scholars detect this in Revelation 13 where the first beast (representing Rome) appears to have died but is revived by the second beast. Sometimes this is used to date Revelation early, since the possibility of Nero’s return would diminish by the 90s since Nero would have been quite old by then. But this oracle implies Nero could return nearly 100 years after his own death, rising like a Phoenix to persecute God’s people once again.

https://readingacts.com/2016/08/15/nero ... k-8-1-159/

Two links to online versions of Book VIII

• https://www.elfinspell.com/SibyllineOraclesBk8.html
• https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sib/sib10.htm

[GakuseiDon]

Therefore, Nero Redivivus would probably derive not from Christ, but from the star prophecy.

I'm not following your logic there, I'm afraid. You are connecting the Nero Redivivus legend to the OT star prophecy but I can't see the link.

Stars, astrology, signs in the sky were important to most ancient cultures. A comet showed that Caesar's soul was ascending to heaven, indicating he was becoming a god: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar's_Comet

According to Suetonius, as celebrations were getting underway, "a comet shone for seven successive days, rising about the eleventh hour, and was believed to be the soul of Caesar."[12]

The Comet became a powerful symbol in the political propaganda that launched the career of Caesar's great-nephew (and adoptive son) Augustus. The Temple of Divus Iulius (Temple of the Deified Julius) was built (42 BC) and dedicated (29 BC) by Augustus for purposes of fostering a "cult of the comet". (It was also known as the "Temple of the Comet Star".[13]) At the back of the temple a huge image of Caesar was erected and, according to Ovid, a flaming comet was affixed to its forehead:

To make that soul a star that burns forever
Above the Forum and the gates of Rome.[14]

In Oprahetic fashion, each of the better-known 'Messiahs' were given stars: Jesus (though only in one Gospel), Vespasian (though Josephus doesn't directly make the connection himself) and Bar Kochba (though it wasn't a literal star but his name.) "You get a star! And YOU get a star!" Perhaps if the Egyptian and others of that ilk had been more successful, they might have ended with their own stars.

I can how the return of Nero might be associated with a sign in the sky, but I don't see the link you are trying to make, I'm afraid.

[GakuseiDon]

It would make for a great sci-fi movie:

Close up of newspaper headlines: "After 2000 years of waiting, he returns!" And it shows a picture of Nero

[yakovzutolmai]

Therefore, Nero Redivivus would probably derive not from Christ, but from the star prophecy.

I'm not following your logic there, I'm afraid. You are connecting the Nero Redivivus legend to the OT star prophecy but I can't see the link.

The logic is impeccable. The Star Prophecy concerns a world ruler rising to power in the East, invoked shamelessly through numerous sources, on behalf of Vespasian. The False Neros fulfilled the expectation of Nero returning after gaining power in the East. It's not rocket science. Feel free to wear blinders.

[yakovzutolmai]

Does the OP relate to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Prophecy

The Star Prophecy (or Star and Scepter prophecy) is a Messianic reading applied by Jewish Zealots and early Christians to Numbers 24:17

We are, through Vespasian's experience, reading out of the "Star Prophecy" quite a popular movement related to it.